Red Cross Blogs

Pete Garratt

Back to work with a bang after the summer holidays.  While I was enjoying some south coast sunshine with my family, thousands of Pakistani families have been struggling through chest-high flood waters trying to salvage what’s left of their belongings.  Sadly, those could be said to have been the lucky ones.

The team in the office here had already begun the British Red Cross response, but the true scale of the disaster only became apparent this morning.  That’s why we’ve upped the ante, released an initial £50,000 from our Disaster Fund and launched the Pakistan Floods Appeal.

I’ve said this before, but it’s impressive when our media and fundraising teams work so closely alongside us to publicise this appeal and give people the opportunity to respond.  Media outlets want to know what the Red Cross has got to say about disasters of this scale and it’s a part of the job to fit these in among the more routine aspects of decision-making around what form our support is going to take.

Today for me it’s been ITV and BBC News 24, and already some of the more difficult questions are emerging around access to regions where there has been fighting in recent years.  It’s important to remember that these floods have affected a huge part of the country, covering a variety of different challenges.  With our partner, the Pakistan Red Crescent, having branches and volunteers throughout the country, they have been well placed to respond.  Indeed, they have a long history of utilising our neutrality to work in even the most difficult locations, including those affected by conflict.

With more rains forecast, we’re worried about the risk of diarrhoea and cholera. We’re also worried that – with so many roads and bridges damaged – aid is going to be difficult to move around.

What I do know is that the local team on the ground will be doing everything to find a way around these problems. Using helicopters will be one pricey, but probably needed option to reach those who desperately need our help.

I would never wish a disaster like this on anyone, but it’s given me an immediate reminder about why we work in disaster response, rather than the usual post-holiday blues.

Donate to the Pakistan Floods Appeal or text DONATE to 70700 more info here: http://bit.ly/bmqcu3

Read more about the Pakistan floods

Image © REUTERS/Adrees Latif/courtesy www.alertnet.org

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Tags: appeals, disaster, disaster response, Emergencies, International, Movement, Pakistan
Posted in Emergencies, International

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These words seem to sum up the world’s attitude to places like Haiti. Once in the eye of a media storm of attention and public good will, understandably the focus has moved on. The recent election, the world cup, economic woes, another celebrity / political / sporting scandal understandably capture our attention. I too am beginning to move on from Haiti as the last of our immediate response programmes come to a close. Rest assured though that the Red Cross focus on Haiti has not diminished as our recovery team take up the baton and undertake the necessary detailed planning of our engagement for the coming years. In fact we’ve been liaising closely together since the start with an eye to next steps.

One team in particular, our mass sanitation emergency response unit, subject of several blogs this year, has come to an end though the work it has been carrying out will continue. A longer-term team is now continuing to work with the people in two large camps to meet their sanitation needs. This is so important. The initial rapid emergency latrines we put up are designed to last two to three months and we are working to replace them with sturdier and more enduring models. We’ve already replaced 50 of the rapid ones. I’ve been impressed with how well the 300 we’ve put in have fared, particularly so in places where the surrounding families have paid such close attention to the cleanliness of them. A welcome reminder about how important it has been for us to engage community around key hygiene practice messages.

We’ve organised the removal of 30 tonnes of garbage from the camps each week and improved camp drainage, critical to prevent disease spreading during fierce rains. Additionally, eleven bathing blocks have provided extra privacy for females and males to wash. These are good achievements, but there have been great challenges in handling such a dense urban environment with little space to build and high water tables. The difficulties in meeting all the needs in a social context where pre-earthquake ills have transferred into the camps where we are working have kept us on our toes too. We’re still there, still engaging, making progress but also in it for the long haul.

For me, what remains now is to formally evaluate the performance of the sanitation team and to ensure that we incorporate all the lessons learned into the preparation, equipment and ongoing training of future teams for the next big disaster. There won’t be much time to rest on any laurels though. There’s plenty to take the place of Haiti. This week alone we are reacting to the first hurricane of the central American season, Agatha; to escalating food insecurity hitting Niger and Chad; to deepening humanitarian crisis in Somalia and Yemen where fewer and fewer humanitarian agencies are able to continue operating due to security considerations – though the Red Cross with its careful, neutral positioning can and does.

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Tags: disaster, earthquake, ERU, Haiti earthquake, haiti earthquake appeal, water and sanitation
Posted in Emergencies, International

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I’m losing track of what time it is, what day it is and (almost) where I am. Having been in Haiti covering a team leader gap in our emergency sanitation team there, the volcano eruption in Iceland put a stop to plans to come back home.  The end result is 6 countries visited, 9 hotels (or tents) stayed in, and a day lost – sort of.

When news of the volcano reached me I had left Haiti and swapped the discomfort of a camp bed in a mosquito net inside a rather hot tent for the comfort of a hotel bed in Panama – there for meetings at the headquarters of the Red Cross in the Americas.  So, unable to get back, I decided to carry on and our excellent charity travel agent, Ian Allen, did a great job of rearranging flights and re-routing me via New York and on to the Philippines.

Not totally random as I was due to undertake a monitoring trip there later in the month to review British Red Cross support to the typhoon response there from October 2009. So, via an overnight in Hong Kong, I ended up in Manila, crossing the international date line going backwards, hence the ‘loss’ of a day – not sure if I will ever get that Sunday back! I can’t say I enjoyed the 16 hour flight from New York to Hong Kong but at least I cleared my email inbox.  It’s pretty sad that I got excited about finding a power point in my seat to keep my laptop going.  Unfortunately the reality of this kind of work means a constant prioritising, even more so since the Haiti earthquake, that results in less important emails getting put aside for a clear space.  For me clear space is often when flying, so couped up with not much room, and with apologies to my neighbours, I tapped away all flight.

I’m now heading home via Kuala Lumpur, home of the Asian Red Cross headquarters, having had a very productive visit to the Philippines. It wasn’t quite a thriller in Manila but very impressive was a red cross shelter programme, where local government was lobbied on behalf of landless, vulnerable people to allocate new and safe land that we could build homes on.  These families all lived in very precarious locations, being extremely poor, on the edge of rivers and lakes, and in flood plains. We are building typhoon resistant shelters, complete with latrines, that are definitely a step up from what they had before and, most importantly, are in safe places.  I say “we” but actually I should say “they” as they are the ones constructing their own homes, under the supervision of our trained carpenters.  To see a tremendous sense of self ownership and pride in their new homes with gardens already planted around was great and helped make the long trip away from home feel worthwhile.

So six countries and six different cultures to get to grips with.  Good fun if a little head spinning at time, less fun was being in a wet and cold New York with light clothing designed for hot and humid climes! Oh well, nearly home, though I think my longsuffering family will ensure I stay grounded for a bit at least.

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Tags: Haiti
Posted in Emergencies, International

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It’s stiflingly hot here in Haiti, the fierce sun beating down and making life under the tarpaulin shelters unbearable for those in the camps. The relief comes when the clouds roll over the hills on the edge of Port-au-Prince and the first rain drops begin to fall. But relief quickly turns to discomfort as the heavens open and the rain pours in.

It has rained heavily the last two nights here, making conditions even more difficult. We have been preparing for the rains and the tarpaulins we have given do provide the minimum of shelter needed. This together with extra drainage, increasing numbers of latrines, clearing of rubbish, and the provision of bathing areas is improving conditions in the camps where we are working.

Yesterday we assessed the 30 most vulnerable camps to see what the impact of the rains had been. Ten vehicles went out, with experts in water and sanitation, relief, and health. We were looking for signs of shelter or latrines collapsing and drainage channels blocking or flooding. Of the 30, nine were identified as in need of additional immediate assistance in the forms of new shelters, latrines and extra drainage which we then proceeded to provide.

Most pleasing to me was that the two camps had not suffered any exceptional damage and that the community teams with whom we have been working were out and about checking the drainage channels, unblocking any accumulated rubbish, and making sure that the latrines were clean. The rains will get heavier and last longer, but this exercise showed we are moving in the right direction.

Looking back at the last three months of disaster response here in Haiti, so much has been done of which we should be pleased. British Red Cross alone has contributed more than 55 personnel to the wider international red cross effort of more than 1,000 international staff, committed over £10 million in funds with more to come as we enter the recovery phase. Don’t get me wrong, lots more needs to be done and at times here it an feel like two steps forward and one step back.

On a personal level it has been a stretching time for all of us in the disaster management department with the Haiti response demanding, and receiving, a high level of attention. We’ve not been neglecting other situations around the globe though as evidenced by our response to the Chile earthquake, conflict in Yemen, the deployment of a team to Mongolia’s severe winter emergency, drought in Niger and the monitoring of flooding in Brazil and conflict in Kyrgyzstan.

There’s no doubt though that the scale of needs, the pre-existing poverty and the damage to the country’s centralised infrastructure make Haiti in 2010 one of the biggest challenges the disaster management community has faced for many a year.

Donate now to the Red Cross Haiti earthquake appeal

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Tags: Haiti, haiti earthquake appeal
Posted in Emergencies, International

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Travelling through Miami on the way back from Haiti I fell into conversation with someone who saw my red cross shirt.  He said he wanted to go to Haiti “just to see what its like”.  I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and hope he didn’t mean as a disaster tourist – someone who revels in visiting disaster zones.  Sadly it happens and frankly it’s pretty upsetting when you have just witnessed at first hand the suffering but also the spirit with which Haitians are trying to respond to one of the worst disaster events in history.

My driver while in Port-au-Prince pointed out what used to be his house, now a pile of rubble where two of his family lost their lives.  Ten yards away the rubble was scorched with burn marks, the result of two other bodies being so badly buried and unable to be reached that their families had decided to cremate them in situ.  Everyone you speak to lost family or friends.  The trauma of this earthquake is going to take a long, long time to get over as people begin to put their lives back together and the city is rebuilt.

I’m writing this on the plane back to London after a four day visit to the earthquake response operation.  With 25 BRC staff involved and having already utilised £3.7 million of the funds that have been raised I needed to see for myself how the operation was going.  Perhaps I was a sort of disaster tourist myself as I visited the camps where BRC is providing latrines and promoting good hygiene, observed relief distributions in difficult to access hillside settings and saw the extraordinary devastation caused to entire neighbourhoods and peoples efforts to clear up rubble.  Actually, there was an important difference, namely that the timing of my trip was so I could decide, together with the Red Cross technical experts on the ground, what are the best ways for BRC to support the operation in the next two to three months in terms of people, expertise, materials and finance.  The outcome was to commit a further £2.5 million for emergency shelter, sanitation and
relief support with more to follow in the coming days and weeks. It is clear that sanitation and shelter are the overwhelming priorities right now.

The first night I was there the heavens opened and heavy rain poured down.  The Red Cross operational base is a tented village and some of my colleagues were flooded out.  A minor inconvenience for them but we all were dreading what the night must have been like for families in the cramped camps, huddled together under whatever shelter they could find.  I headed down to one of the biggest camps that morning with our sanitation team and was pleased to see that the Red Cross had distributed 5,000 tarpaulins there the previous week, which provided precious cover and kept off the worse of the rain.

The second camp I went to was in a far worse state.  As I walked around families were busy trying to dry out their possessions and digging out little drainage channels around their rudimentary shelters; they had basically ended up sleeping in the mud.  With the full rainy season fast approaching we simply have to continue to provide as much shelter as we possibly can, hence the Red Cross target of doing this for 300,000 people.

Whilst clean water is now being provided in adequate quantities sanitation is another major concern and we are in a race to provide enough latrines and ensure these are kept clean to help minimise the increases in diarrhea and cholera that are quite likely to come.  Indeed, we are already prepositioning cholera treatment kits in Port-au-Prince in preparation.

The reality is that we’re going to have be prepared to meet continuing major humanitarian needs in a hugely challenging and tightly packed environment for several more months yet while at the same time lay the groundwork to begin the full recovery process that is going to be needed over the coming years. So far the Red Cross has stepped up the mark and I’m proud of what we’ve achieved, but we can’t afford to rest on our laurels and Haiti will continue to dominate the work of our disaster management teams for the foreseeable future.

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Posted in Emergencies

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